Hi low/mid/high stakers.

Recently i've been having to defend myself amongst my friends regarding my aspiration to being a full time poker player. Firstly they don't believe one can earn a living from gambling, secondly they think it's a slippery slope... now those two things can be dismissed and turned around quite easily... but thirdly they say that we're earning a living off SOME people who have gambling addictions who just buy in and spew.

I threw in a guess that that isn't the case because of the poker economy. Losers give money to winners, sometimes winners give money to losers, but losers become winners and the cycle continues.

But i need to ask this fundamental question about earning a living from playing poker (mainly online, there's probably a much larger degree of drunken spewtards in vegas casinos so lets concentrate on online poker).

As a guess, what percent of online players have real issues and don't pay any mind to BRM etc. and just fuck their lives away at the tables?

I think no more than 0.01% but if it were a lot higher, like say 20% i'm not so sure i'd feel comfortable earning a living off them. But again, i really don't think this is the case and i just wanted to get some real feedback about the issue for my own conscience and so i can tell my friends they don't know what the f--k they're talking about